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I live in the Czech Republic, a former member of the Soviet Union, and people and businesses here take breaking the law for granted. Many of the laws here conce

I live in the Czech Republic, a former member of the Soviet Union, and people and businesses here take breaking the law for granted. Many of the laws here concerning employment, taxes, and building permits can be quite overwhelming and our beurocrats are very slow to process the various forms. However, I believe that the fact that so many people and companies ignore these laws actualy tends to hide the faliures of the system. If everyone were to try to follow these laws and fill out all the forms that were needed, and wait for them to be processed then the slowness of the beurocratic system would become much more apparent than it is today.

deciplex 11y ago
Indeed, and there is an even darker side to this, which is what you get when the government starts selectively enforcing these ridiculous laws. Play ball with the oligarchy, and they'll ignore that you didn't bother to go through all various red tape stuff (because no one can actually meet all those requirements and stay in business). Pose a threat to them, and find your property confiscated and very likely facing criminal charges. This is Oppression 101, first week. I challenge anyone to find an unequivocally oppressive regime which does not engage in this tactic. I'm not totally disagreeing with the article, because these tactics can be useful as long as you keep the long-term goal in mind: overturning stupid or onerous legislation. But if in doing this you foster a culture which does not respect rule of law, you most definitely will not challenge the legitimacy of the really oppressive regimes - rather, you will enable them.
icanhackit 11y ago
Great point - I've experienced similar issues in business. A process, procedure or tool is set up for your team that doesn't work. Rather than following the process, the team simply finds the quickest route from point A to B (completing the task) and uses that rather than communicating that the system doesn't work. I imagine it's for similar reasons - they expect the response from management to be a slow and sub-optimal alteration to the process, to be ignored outright, or in some way punished for providing feedback. It's easier to just get the job done, right? On the flip side, a lot of the time you can't simply copy their A to B process to replace the one they ignore as it often misses some annoying yet essential minutiae that needs to be covered from a management perspective. Just as a government might have good reasons for making you tick a bunch of boxes on a form to do something simple - what's not clear to the end user is that they're there to prevent disputes, avoiding treading on a very small minority of people etc. But to average Joe, it's just more work with no clear justification.

deciplex 11y ago

Indeed, and there is an even darker side to this, which is what you get when the government starts selectively enforcing these ridiculous laws. Play ball with the oligarchy, and they'll ignore that you didn't bother to go through all various red tape stuff (because no one can actually meet all those requirements and stay in business). Pose a threat to them, and find your property confiscated and very likely facing criminal charges. This is Oppression 101, first week. I challenge anyone to find an unequivocally oppressive regime which does not engage in this tactic. I'm not totally disagreeing with the article, because these tactics can be useful as long as you keep the long-term goal in mind: overturning stupid or onerous legislation. But if in doing this you foster a culture which does not respect rule of law, you most definitely will not challenge the legitimacy of the really oppressive regimes - rather, you will enable them.

icanhackit 11y ago

Great point - I've experienced similar issues in business. A process, procedure or tool is set up for your team that doesn't work. Rather than following the process, the team simply finds the quickest route from point A to B (completing the task) and uses that rather than communicating that the system doesn't work. I imagine it's for similar reasons - they expect the response from management to be a slow and sub-optimal alteration to the process, to be ignored outright, or in some way punished for providing feedback. It's easier to just get the job done, right? On the flip side, a lot of the time you can't simply copy their A to B process to replace the one they ignore as it often misses some annoying yet essential minutiae that needs to be covered from a management perspective. Just as a government might have good reasons for making you tick a bunch of boxes on a form to do something simple - what's not clear to the end user is that they're there to prevent disputes, avoiding treading on a very small minority of people etc. But to average Joe, it's just more work with no clear justification.